The Five
by Miss Hydrangea
Summary: At the end of the day, Ino isn't sure if she hates the five men who broke her heart, or if she hates herself for allowing them to do it.


**The Five**

1.

No one was stronger, no one was better, no one could ever know more. But knowing others' secrets makes a man proud and paranoid, and as much as Inoichi knew he was more than an ordinary man, he was still human, fragile. Sometimes half-dreaming, sometimes hazily balancing between the loving father she knew and a thousand strangers in a familiar mask, he crumbled quickly before her averted eyes. The momentary glaze of confusion, the lapses in memory, the violent out-bursts they pretended never happened. He was proud, and talented, but while he excelled at tearing through deception like tissue, he could not hide at home. He was not as resilient as Ibiki, could not keep his work life from spilling over. He was strung thin and tight as a wire, and when he snapped she refused to follow suit.

2.

He left. He left the village, he left their genin class, he left her and everything in the world that she could-have, would-have offered if he had only stayed. Like it was all nothing, like it was easy; her team-mates almost died for him, and some nights, she thinks they did. None of them were the same, after that; their childhoods died with their first kills. Sometimes, late at night when Chouji's stomach grumbles in his sleep or Shikamaru flinches to the low hoot of the owls she hates her utter powerlessness to break-beat-_hurt_ him. This isn't a childish crush anymore. This is closer, deeper, this savage fury she can barely keep contained. While Sakura and Naruto desperately cling to the hope that if they become strong enough, Sasuke will come back and everything will be sunshine and roses, she knows better. Once, she may have been willing to devote her entire being for his acknowledgement, his affection. Now she know better; he is not worth her two brothers, the blood-sweat-_tears_ of her friends, or anything she has to offer, with the exception of a slow working mind-melting jutsu. She wants to hurt him so much it _hurts_.

3.

When she was all of twelve, budding curves and rounded baby fat that hadn't yet realized she was a _woman_ now and left the confines of her skin, she finally found the boy who could _see_ her. She'd heard her parents coo over her pretty-as-a-princess baby blues and cornsilk hair, and her teammates had no choice but to admit she was the most attractive of their whole genin cell. But Ino was done with low-hanging fruit and knew, deep down in the depths of her bedside mirror, that something about her was _lacking_. In the adrenaline rush of the Chunin Exams, when she finally began to _trust_ what she'd been told about the girl in the mirror, she met the one person in her life who would see her as she was, under all the pretentions, well-meaning lies and polite half-truths. He wasn't attracted. He thought she was just another brainless floozy, not even enough of a threat to bother incapacitating.

That _stung_. She hadn't loved him then, but a seed took root in the masochistic soil of her psyche, and without her even knowing it, he was fast becoming her meter-stick. She didn't adore him, didn't follow after him with declarations of affection. But she stopped smiling at her reflection, and started looking for perfection on the battlefield, not the mirror. Beauty may still be a weapon, but it was no longer one she relied on in the endgame. Neji never knew he'd been the one to break that little piece of Ino's normal-girl-life, but he wouldn't have cared anyway.

4 .

She was in the middle of a mission when he first caught her eye. Dark lashes like an inky brushstroke against his porcelain face, the outline of his features gilded with the amber glow of sunset. She'd always had a soft spot for pretty boys.

"Sorry, miss," he offered her a polite smile, hands outstretched with fallen fruit, "These dropped out of your bag." She eyes the bruised apples and squashed tomatoes, red and sticky juices staining his white smock with watery pink, trailing cold wet lines down the length of his forearms.

The last time she sees him, it's warm blood that stains his grocer's smock, and it's her saying a quick and quiet "sorry". _I'm not what you think I am_, she wanted to plead. _I don't want this, didn't plan this, you have to understand_. Except that she can't, because she's too busy with her mission and there's no time or way to say "Sorry for killing you, you were in the way" in a way that makes sense. Salt water drips from his dark gaze, and she wishes it didn't look so openly _betrayed_. She wants to blame him, the mission, anyone else but herself but she can't because she did it on instinct. Her desire to kill the enemy, to fulfill the mission, ran deeper than what she felt for him. She hated herself.

"Ah, thank you," she bites her lip and smiles, just so. "Could you direct me to this address? I'm a little lost."

_I'm not what you think I am_, she wanted to plead. _No_, said the dark voice in her head, _You're worse_.

5. She was young, she wants to think. It was because she was too naïve, too trusting to see what was in front of her face—blue eyes so deep you could taste salt water as you drowned in them. But only the dumb die young, and Ino barely missed death by a golden blonde hair. It was supposed to be a night of casual fun, playing with the civvies and pretending she didn't have to wake-kill-rinse-repeat all day every day. Tonight was her break, her time to make believe that she was young and reckless and free, and God help the soul who would get between Ino and a good time tonight—because after last week's mission, she deserved it.

She should have been more careful, she knows. Every ninja knows that alcohol is dangerous, and sex can be lethal. Losing control is the worst-case scenario, unless you're that needle in a haystack like Lee. But Lee's always been anomalous, so he doesn't count. She just wanted to dance, to forget who she was and where she was and be lost in the moment. She wanted to feel alive, when she saw the gleam of his teeth in his mischievous grin, she knew she wanted to not feel alone, too. He was warm blood and pounding heartbeat, hands sliding over hips and arms wrapping round her body. His fingers brushed her neck, turned her face to meet his mouth—and suddenly her mind trips and she knows what's going on, what's been going on and she's struggling to defog her mind from whatever drug was in that drink, to clear the haze of desire and that keen wanting from her chest and she lunges.

Into his mind, into the dark cavern of what he would do if he had the chance, the slimeball that he is—_what she would have let him do_, a darker corner of her mind whispers, and then she splatters him from the inside. She exits his mind, slips back into her own, and her body is cold with salty sweat and the air is heavy with the stench of unresolved desire. What she remembers most keenly is the way his arms encircled her, how snugly she fit there, the warmth and that deceitful feeling of safety. She already knew not to trust men, but now she knew not to trust herself, either.

Only the dumb die young, and Ino is old. She is old enough to pull the trigger and slip out of her own mind, laughing.


End file.
